


Threat of a Threat

by biggestbaddestwolf



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 17:47:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggestbaddestwolf/pseuds/biggestbaddestwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You got sixty seconds before I tell you how I'm gonna hurt you." Eliot questions a man about a kidnapping. From a fic I will never write.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Threat of a Threat

"You got sixty seconds before I tell you how I'm gonna hurt you."

That's the threat, and it's the kind of threat that makes a man like Gusarov double take. Even with the bright bulb of a hanging light is being turned in his eyes and he's half blind and all he can see is the silouhette of the man in thick leather gloves holding the light bulb in his direction, he blinks in surprise, not blindness.

He's ready to quake and shiver as he's tied up in his chair, but that threat, that threat of a threat, makes him pause. He snorts, and for a brief second he looks away- a mistake, because suddenly the man with the gloves has a free hand wrenching Gusarov' chin back around to face the light and the silouhette.

"I didn't say you could look away," the man with the gloves rasps. There's a growl underneath his words, but he's already laid his hand on the table. He's said what he's going to do, and it's laughable, even when Gusarov has his hands tied behind the chair using a plastic pull tab. He has been working on the tabs for a few minutes, pulling little by little. Although it hurts- an annoyance- he's making progress, slowly pulling it until it breaks.

Gusarov is a large man, and the plastic around his wrists cuts into his circulation. He's a large man that has spent the past decade of his life surrounding by other large men. Maybe they weren't always large in stature, but they were large regardless; they were men that went out on a single word, and brought down men and women and buildings and countries. They all had their reasons, and their skills, and Gusarov was one of their ranks.

He'd never met the man with the gloves before this mission, but his name, several of his names, they were known to Gusarov. Eliot Spencer was well established, enough that Gusarov, with his years of knowledge and experience and of building himself a place in those circles, knew to be afraid of him.

But word was that Eliot Spencer had been out of the game a long time now. Long enough, maybe, that he thought the threat of a threat was enough.

"You're going to talk at me?" Gusarov's laughter is loud against the walls. "How close to me will you be while you are talking, eh Spencer? This close? I will get out of here before you are done talking, and then I will destroy you."

"Is that a fact?" Without the ability to see Eliot's face clearly, Gusarov cannot see if he's amused. The gravel in Eliot's voice seems almost flat, both sardonic and deadly serious. "That how you wanna play this, buddy? You sure?"

He drops the lightbulb and lets it swing near Gusarov. It's just low enough that it dips and sways right over his head, so that Gusarov can feel the heat. The plastic bindings are starting to give. Eliot is wasting time, trying to get information that Gusarov would not give.

But that kind of confidence means that Eliot was certain that he would get the information that he wanted. Gusarov had heard tales that he was out of his league with this man- but he is not so far out of his league as to be easily broken.

"You want to know the location of your little hacker," Gusarov declares. Eliot doesn't respond, but without the light in his hand, he does more than just become a silouhette; he melted into the darkness of the room. Gusarov raises his voice slightly, making sure that whatever the man was doing he would hear. "You want to know where my employers have him-"

"You don't have employers." Eliot's statement is so simple, Gusarov knows he's not bluffing. "You and your buddies, you set this up nicely. I'm almost impressed. Made it look like you were following some big shot, just taking a contract. But this ain't no contract job. It's personal, isnt' it?" Gusarov's lip curls as he thinks about the answer to that question. "So which of us did something to you? Me, him, or her?"

"He played games with my money!" Gusarov thunders. He pulls back instantly; Eliot is riling him up, intentionally, throwing him off guard. It is good, very good. Gusarov takes a deep breath and tugs at the wrist bindings a couple of more times before he really feels them give way. "It took me years, but I found the little bastard, and now, me and my brother will get the money he took from us. Either the money or his flesh- it doesn't bother me either way."

"That's why you're an idiot."

"Says the man who was going to talk me to death."

"You know why I gave you those sixty seconds, Gusarov?" Eliot's voice has a different lilt to it, a sharper, knife edge of a sound. "Because while I tell you what, I'm gonna do to you, you're gonna have to deal with  _her_."

Gusarov is starting to stand now, ready to lunge at Eliot for his foolishness, for his attachment to the hacker. Gusarov is facing the wrong way, and doesn't see the taser coming his way. But he feels it, and it hurts as his body seizes before the world tilts and he's on the floor.

The thief. She stands over him now, in the light, a second silouhette as Eliot moves in closer.


End file.
